Will the faux-meat race experience a meaty win?

The plant-based meat market is estimated to reach US$4,780.609 million in 2024 from US$1,571.438 million in 2018 at a remarkable CAGR of 20.37%. Plant-based meat basically substitutes the meat derived from a variety of animals that tend to emulate the properties of the real meat. Leguminous plants like soy, lentils, tempeh, tofu, variety of nuts, wheat gluten as well as Yuba are among the various ingredient that makes up plant-based meat products. The plant-based meat products are available in burger patties, nuggets, strips, meatballs, sausages, and ground meat, among others. The recent emergence of the demand for clean meat is one of the prime reasons that plant-based meat is witnessing a surge in demand.

The rationale for clean meat could be trichotomized into following: for starters, the industrialization of meat production has resulted in the inclusion of various chemicals to meet the needs of the growing population that has resulted in the sudden rise of health concerns; secondly, the amount of the greenhouse gas emission caused due to animal husbandry and allied services has led to a growing environmental concern that has catapulted the demand for clean meat. Last but not least, the growing concern of animal welfare has added to the steady rise in demand for plant-based meat products.

The growing demand for plant-based meat has led to investments, diversifications, and startups of various plant-based meat organizations. For instance, the Impossible Foods that has garnered a substantial amount of acclaim for their Impossible Burgers™ has launched a new variant of their plant-based meat i.e. ImpossibleTM Pork. Further, it has claimed that with the inclusion of their products the various foodservice businesses have reported an increase of up to 36% of sales. Further, Impossible Foods CFO David Lee, their pork variant has a total fat content that is 60% less, sans cholesterol along with the approximately same amount of protein. Additionally, it has 40 percent fewer calories with 2.5 times the iron content. Thus, with products of this sort the consumers of the plant-based market are in for indulging themselves in a gastronomical endeavor without any environmental guilt.

Contrarily the consumers of developing countries due to their increasing disposable income are more inclined to include naturally-derived meat, fish, and seafood as part of their diet. Thus, the global demand for meat from animals is shooting up. Simultaneously, people in developed economies are increasingly preferring the so-called virtue burgers due to the growing awareness of the resources intensive process of raising animals for eggs, milk, and meat. To this end, in January 2020, the venture arm of General Mills (NYSE: GIS) called 301 Inc. along with a few other venture capitalists are set to invest in Series B funding round that is to the tune of to US$32 million to boost the Good Catch brand of New York-based Gathered Foods.

This decision is followed by the success of Beyond Meat (NASDAQ: BYND), that has left an indelible mark in the meat space and is still making waves, Good Catch team has spent a good amount of time in drawing a conclusive sensorial feedback of its shelf-stable tuna product, before it was launched in February 2020. Their rationale for investing in seafood is the overfishing of the ocean and the ecosystem is highly stressed. Further taking advantage of the growing appetite for seafood and fish, the Golden Valley-based company sees great opportunity in the plant-based seafood market. Because of the above Good Catch plans to utilize this investment to conclude its 42,000-square-foot production facility construction.

In the case of both instances, it should be noted that General Mills is neither a plant-based food or lab-grown protein bio-food company, but its 301 Inc. has made investments primarily into plant-based food organization. This is indicative of the fact that the plant-based meat market is set to exponentially grow even beyond the forecast period as well. This is concerning the consumers of the occident that primarily include those residing in the Northern America and Europe. The plant-based scene in the APAC region is also poised to witness promising growth.

With the culinary traditions being markedly different from that of the US, it has necessitated the product innovation to be in line with the eating habits of the orient like Viz. dumplings or steaming noodle bowls. For instance, in Beijing, Zhenmeat, an organization that is currently engaged in making plant-based meat products based on pea proteins that have been included in savory dishes, is attempting creating 3D printed bones as well as looking forward to funding to expand its operations across China. This effort is also to check the progression of US-based counterparts like Beyond Meat and Impossible Food in the Chinese market. The aforesaid effort has been partly set in motion with Chinese plant-based companies mainly focusing on local dishes like dumplings or meatballs as well as for opting for pork flavors rather than beef flavors considering the local palettes.

Thus, the evident competition, plus China’s recovery from a devastating African Swine fever, US-China trade war, raised the prices of pork and beef respectively coupled with the growing demand of chinses consumers that largely follows food trend, the plant-based meat market is poised to grow in China as well.

The emergence of plant-based meat alternatives has reshaped the way the human appetite used to perceive the "meaty" taste. It would be just to say that a revolution has been set in motion by the plant-based meat companies. However, the ubiquitous acceptance of plant-based meat would take some time across all cultures due to the inherent neophobia that every individual is naturally predisposed to experience when either exposed to a new food-product or with the advent of a new variety that gradually makes its way into the market.